The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for baking, and in particular to a removable oven rack and adjustable pan components of the baking oven.
Baking ovens can be used for preparing a variety of food items. In addition, baking ovens can have many different features to enhance the baking experience of the user as well as accommodate different baking needs. For instance, a baking oven can be used to prepare large food items such as a roasted turkey or a small delicate food item such as soufflé.
In most instances, the baking experience is quite successful and all of the food items are contained in the preparation dishes. However, over time, food particles that spill over or escape the preparation dishes may adhere to the interior surface of the baking oven. Eventually, the user will need to clean the baking oven to remove the stains and spills from the interior surface not only for sanitary reasons but also because the residue may adversely affect the overall taste of subsequent food items prepared in the baking oven.
Hence, the cleaning of the baking oven typically can be a very time-intensive process because of the size and arrangement of the interior components of the baking oven. For instance, commercially available ovens include an oven rack that is either welded or permanently affixed to the oven shaft. As a consequence, the rack can only be removed by contacting a service technician having special tools to disassemble the rack. In some cases, a partial disassembly of the oven rack is required to remove it from the interior of the baking oven. Once the rack has been disengaged, it can subsequently be cleaned. The duration of this process varies. The additional labor required to disassemble and reassemble the oven rack components is undesirable, and there is an increased possibility that the oven rack components could be damaged or broken each time the oven rack has to be removed. Additionally, each time the oven needs to be cleaned, a service technician has to be contacted and scheduled. Hence, there may be times when the service technician is unavailable because of time restraints. The user then has a dilemma of whether to continue to use the baking oven or to incur significant delays in its operation until the baking oven can be cleaned.
In addition to problems associated with removing the oven rack, there are also other challenges associated with the pan support configuration within the oven rack. Typically, pan supports are installed in a set configuration and do not permit manual repositioning or reconfiguration by the user in either the longitudinal or lateral direction. The pan supports are permanently affixed to the rack either through welding or an equivalent process.
With the present systems, oven operators need to purchase and store oven racks with different support pan spacing to accommodate different heights needed for specific baking and cooking operations. In addition, the pan support member is fixed to the rack through welding or equivalent methods. Therefore, to change the spacing increments, a different rack is needed.
It would be desirable to have the pan support spaces at different increments to provide greater flexibility in the baking process as well being able to remove the pan support for cleaning purposes. Currently, pan supports do not provide any manual adjustment in the configuration and if any changes need to be made to the configuration, a new or different rack must be installed to accommodate the change. Thus, oven operators may need to store oven racks with different pan supports having a variety of space configurations.
It would also be desirable to have a pan support assembly that could be easily replaced in the event of minor damage or if needed to be replaced. Currently, if a pan support becomes damaged, the entire configuration must be replaced and there is limited space to store extra rack variations in the event that a quick replacement is needed.
Therefore, there is a need for a baking oven having removable oven racks that can be manually removed by the user without the use of complex tools or specialized experience, allowing the user to clean the oven racks outside of the oven. In addition, there is also a need for a pan support that can be easily replaced and eliminate the need for multiple racks to be purchased and stored by the user.